628 n64 )opy 1 PROJECT FOR A National Monument TO THE Women of the Civil War. WITH SPEECH OF THE HON. JAMES M. BECK, Delivered at the Banquet of the Loyal Legion, New York, October 4th, 1911. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Headquarters, No. 140 Nassau Street, NEW YORK. N. Y. h Project for A National Monument to the Women of the Civil War. unanimously approved at a business meeting of the COMMANDEKY OF THE STxVTE OF NEW YORK of the MILITARY OKDEK OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED 8TATES, held at Del- monico's, New Y^ork, October 4th, 1911, and, by it, referred to the COMMANDERY-IN-CHIEF, at its session in Philadelphia, October 18th, 1911, and as there amended and again ratified by the NEW Y'OKK COMMANDERY', October 30th, 1911. i^esiolution. as originally adopted at a business meeting of the COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK of the [MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES, held at Delmonico's, New York, Octo- ber 4th, 1911, and amended October 30th, 1911, in accordance with a Resolution of the COM- MANDERY'-IN-CHIEF, at its meeting in Phila- delphia, October 18th, 1911. Wlicrcas, a member of the Commandery of the State of New York has proposed the raising of a fund of Five hundred thousand dollars to l»uild a National Monument in the City of Wash- ington to the Memory of the Noble Women, who, in the Civil War, as loyal mothers and wives so freely offered their dear ones on the altar of their (ountry that the Union might be preserved, and who so hei-uically devoted themselves to our sick and wounded soldiers on the battlefields and in the hospitals, and ^\'/lcrc(tsJ the said lueinbei' lias giianiiiteed a subscription of Fifty thousand dollars upon tlic ((nidition that the sum of Three hundred tiioHsand dollars be raised within one year from date, and Whereas, the Comniandery of the State of New York does heartily concur in the said pro- posal, Therefore^ he it resolved, that a special Com- mittee on Ways and Means consisting of MAJOR-GENERAL FREDERICK D. GRANT GENERAL THOMAS H. HUBBARD GENERAL J. FRED PIERSON MAJOR J. LANGDON WARD CAPT. JAMES A. SCRYMSER LIEUT. LOYALL FARRAGUT FIRST LIEUT. THOMAS STURGIS be, and is hereby, appointed to do all things necessary to further the project for this monu- ment, and Be it further resolved, that a" copy of these Resolutions be forwarded to the Commandery- in-chief and the other Commanderies of this Or- der, to the Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, to the President of the ^Voman's Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Repnblic, to the President of the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic and to all kindred associations, together with the Pension Bureau at Washington, all soldiers homes and all vet- erans and other patriotic men and women of America, with a request that they co-operate with the Comniandery of the State of New York, in collecting the funds and forwarding the objects set forth in these Resolutions, and Be it further resolved, that the Command- ory-in-r'hief, at its annnal meeting to be held in Philadelphia on October 18th, 1911, be requested to endorse this i)i-oj('c1 iind i-cconmKMul it to tlic twenty-one State ( 'omniandeties, tlins J,'iviuj5 to the i)roject impetus and publicity, to the end tliat such a monument shall 1»* huift and the lonj,^ delayed debt of i>:ratitiide be paid to the memory of those noble women of the Civil War, and their deeds of sacriace and valor be thus peri)etuated, and Bv it further rcsolnd, that communications and also all contributions be forwarded to the Secretary and Treasurer by check or postal money order stating that the same is to be cred- ited to the fund for a National Monument to the >yomen of the (Mvil War by which name and title the said fund is to be known. JAMES A. SCRYMSER, Chairman of Committee on Wai/s and Means, Commander)! (>f the Rtate of Xen- York. Secret a r If and Treasnrer, A. NOEL BLAKEMAN, Recorder. MUitarij Order of the Loyal Lef/ion Xeir York Comma ndenj. 140 Nassau Street, New York. Connsri: TTon. JAMES ^1. RECK Depository: UNION TRUST COMPANY, N. Y. At the Banquet of the Commander}', held the same evening at Delmonico's, the Resolution was read and enthusiastically received. Follow- ing the reading. General Edward Ripley, who presided at the banquet, offered a toast, ''To the Memory of the Nohle Women of the Civil War" and the toast was pledged in silence. The response to the toast was given by the Hon. James M. Beck, whose eloquent address is printed in full herewith. The American "Women in the Civil War. Address of James M. Beck, formerly Assistant Attorney General of the United States, in response to a toast at the dinner of the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion, Ncav York City, October 4, 1911. Mr. President and Gentlemen : In responding to this toast of gracious memory, I can only regret that some one has not been selected who could dwell upon so inspiring a theme as the patriotic work of the American woman in the Civil War, with a fervor born of actual experience. I did not, however, feel at liberty to decline your invitation to advocate the erection of the proposed memorial at Washington, for your Commandery recently did me the great honor to elect me to its membership and I could not decline its first call to service, especially as it gives me this opportunity to express my grateful acknowledgment of the honor thus done me. Ill ailvocatiiig the proposed iiipiiioi-ial, my only regret is that I cannot rise "to the lieight of the great argnment." Fortunately, it needs no advocate. The cause speaks for itself. This project is one of singular nobility and beauty. In many ways it is unicjue. Notwithstanding the rhapsodies of poets and artists with respect to woman, it remains a fact that few memorials, erected to perpetuate the memory of great achievements and liersonalities, record the heroism, self-sacrifice and patriotism of woman. This deficiency is onh' true of that commemora- tive Art, which seeks to record the verdicts of history. The chisel and the brush have ever found in woman an inspiring subject, when the motive for expression was purely aesthetic. The literature of the ages has also embodied the chivalrous admiration which all noble men have for women. In all Greek literature, what figure more noble than Antigone, while the most inspired poem of the Christian era had for its inspiration the sainted Beatrice, under whose gentle guidance the great Florentine ascended in his exalted imagination from the depths of Hell to the loftiest regions of Paradise. These, however, are poetical abstractions, gracious expressions of a spirit of undying chivalry. It re- mains true that the concrete achievements of women have had scant recognition. We look almost in vain for any memorial which records her sacrifice and patriotism. There are in England statues to Elizabeth, Anne and Victoria, but in this as in other countries, where the achievements of women are recorded in bronze or marble, it is the ruler, whose reign and deeds are generally commemorated. France indeed, with characteristic idealism, has commemorated in many noble memorials the marvellous and indeed almost miraculous achievements of her Joan of Arc, while (iermany has not failed to i-emember the pathetic mis- fortunes of her Queen Louise. The noblest memorial erected to the memory of a woman as a woman will not he found in Christen- dom, but in the Orient and was erected not b}' a civilized Nation but by an Indian ruler. I refer to that which many believe to be the most beautiful memorial in the world, the Taj Mahal in India, erected by an Oriental potentate to the memory of a beloved wife and which stands to-day in imperish- able beauty as one of the wonders of the world. We utilize the gracious outward form of woman to symbolize the highest attributes and the noblest ideals of man. The winged figure of victory — the Nike of Samothrace — symbolizes the triumphant des- tiny of a race, as the best Greek sculpture spoke of the wisdom of the "city of the violet crown," as typified in the figure of Minerva, Love — sacred and profane — has been symbolized many thousand times in stately churches, noble temples and inspiring elfigies, but how rare is any memorial to any concrete achievement of a woman? The achievements and heroism of men in war have been the inspiring theme of countless memorials, but few can be recalled that similarly record the self-sacrifice of women in times of conflict. And yet woman has been, from the very dawn of history, the chief victim of war, the solace of disaster, the gentle consoler of affliction, the mother of heroes, the inspirer of victory. Commemorative art has its serioas purpose and solemn obligations. The Greeks had so fine a sense of its proprieties that they condemned Phidias to prison because he had furtiveh^ chiseled images of himself and Pericles on the shield of Minerva. This tradition suggests a great truth. A perma- nent memorial constitutes not merely a verdict upon the past but a challenge to the future. It seeks to project the beliefs and emotions of a generation beyond the gulf of years into that unknown and illim- itable future, down whose infinite vista we turn an eager but darkened vision. It asserts our belief that the thing that we commemorate is of such undying interest that it will not "fade like streaks of morning cloud into tlic infinite azure of llic ])ast." Such memorials are the letters of u j^rcat lau<^uaj;i*, l>y which one ajj^e tells to auctthcr its decpi'st fcclinus, its j»reatest passions, its highest hoju's, its uoMcst deeds. Such appeal of the livin^j^ to th«' unlioiii is either an act of sublime justice or it is presumptuous folh'. If the latter, its worst vice is that it flatters and therefore shames the dead. This thought is deeply impressed ou any one who walks through Westminster Abbey. There are found among many noble and deserved memorials, monu- ments to men and achievements of such ej)heuu'ral im- portance, as to shock our sense of propi-iety, remind- ing us of Edmund Burke's sad exclamation to the electors of Bristol — " What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue !" The very word "statue" signifies the "immoAal le'' thing, and therefore should only symbolize that which is in its lasting nobility and permanent infinence im- movable. Indeed the words "state" and "statue" have a common origin and the history of the one can often be read in the other, in the case of any nation which respects its past. A French child can read the his- tory of his country in its memorials and the inseiip- tion over the Pantheon in Paris evinces the undying spirit of this great people. We need not fear the verdict of the future as to what we now plan to do. There are many mem- orials to the deathless valor of the brave men, who in the four years from 1861 to 1865, responded to the call of their country and in many cases laid down their lives for its preservation; but not less worthy of connnemorative art is the equal patriotism of the women of America, who as truly threw their hearts into the great struggle for the Union, and who freely gave their lives at the no less dangcMous posts of duty of the fever stricken camps, which followiMl with the scythe of Death the march of our mighty armies. The women of America had reason to throw their hearts and 8>onls into the great struggle, for the .supreme issue upon which it was fought was one of exalted morality, appealing as few wars have ever done to the noblest emotions of women. When war in other ages meant the preservation of a race or community, when victory was followed by spoliation, rapine, massacre and other outrages, women have taken active part in every conflict from the instinct of self-preservation. As advancing civil- ization has ended this awful aftermath of battle, women have had little heart in any war due merely to economic causes or the desire for territorial ag- grandizement. The cause of a war must be of sublime unselfishness to reconcile the gentle heart of a woman to the multiplied destruction of a modern battlefield. The Civil War had a peculiar appeal to the con- science of women. It was not only that the preserva- tion of the Union was at stake, but that a supreme issue of human freedom, due in no small part to the tender sympathies of woman, had precipitated a struggle which involved the right of the slave mother to the child of her breast. Freely conceding that the causes that led up to the Civil War were complex in character, in some instances involving economic rather than moral questions, yet a controlling motive of the great conflict was the question of slavery, and in that issue the women of America had a deeper inter- est than the men, and possibly did more to bring it home to the hearts and consciences of the American people. Among the causes of the great conflict Harriet Beecher Stowe's pen was not secondary in importance to the Dred Scott decision or John Brown's raid, while the loyal people of the North kept step to the music of the Union to the immortal lines of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Kepublic. The women of America freely gave not only their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons, but many of them threw themselves into the conflict as army nurses and endured perils and suffered hardships that were little less than those sustained by the soldiers on the firing line. Such lofty patriotism has always characterized the American women. The women of the Revolution, witli whom Bui-goyiie had boasted before leaving Eng- land that he would dance, and with a pitiful minority of whom the soldiers of Howe did dance in the Mes- chianza, contributed not merely the product of their nimble fingers, but also that which was dearest to them. Said one of them to her husband, in the spirit of a Roman matron : ^'Remember, Sidney, that I would rather hear that you were left a corpse on the field than that you were a coward." To which her Lovelace could have replied in those lovely words which eml)ody the chivalry of our race: "I could not love thee, dear, so much Loved I not honor more." To that Philadelphia Woman's Committee, which, headed by Esther Reed, had helped to clothe his ragged Continentals, Washington, with true Vir- ginian gallantry, wrote: "The Army ought not to regret its sacrifices or its sufferings when they meet with so flattering a reward as in the sympathy of your sex, nor can it fear that its interests will be neglected when espoused by advocates as powerful as they are amiable.-' Such spirit characterized the women of America in the dark days of 1861-1865, times that truly tried as with fire women's souls as well as those of men. How many, like Andromache "smiling through hei' tears,'' said to those they loved best: "If you think it your duty to go, you should go.'* Lincoln's beautiful letter, written in 1863 to the mother who sacrificed her five sons on the altar of her country, simply speaks of one of many thousands who heroi- cally bade their sons, many of them on the very thres- hold of manhood, to go forth to probable death to save the ITnion. When the memorial is erectcMl, could we do better than inscribe upon it as its moving spirit, those beau- tiful words of Lincoln in the letter just referred to: "I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consiola- tion that may be found in the thanks of the Repub- lic they died to save, I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereave- ment, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." Our American civilization has always taken just pride in the gracious type of refined, cultivated and ennobled womanhood, and while modesty has ever been its distinctive charm, yet the women of America have never at any crisis of their country hesitated to give up their gentle retirement, if thereby they could in any manner advance a good cause or alleviate human suffering. They have ever shown the spirit of the noblest Greek heroine, Antigone, the devoted daughter and sister, who gave her own life that the body of her slain brother might have the honored rites of sepulture. Could he, who may hereafter design this memorial, do better than give concrete expression to the figure of Antigone, thus identifying the Greek maiden with her sisters of later ages and joining in the bonds of heroism the noblest heroine of the epic period of Greece with those of the latest and noblest Republic of all time. In the Civil War, the patriotic co-operation of American women reached a high water mark never attained before and possibly never to be attained again. Every little community had its organization to help the men in the front, great enterprises were undertaken in the leading cities to raise fiinds for the Sanitary Commissions, depots were maintained, through which the soldier passing fi-om his Northern home to Southern battlefields, could get food and raiment and that helpful encouragement which is 10 greater than both. Never did our women better justi- fy thoir nj^ht to the title "lad^V' that meaning origin- ally the "bread giver." Thousands, under the inspiring leadership of CMai-c Jiarton, — a name justly to be rankcil with those of Florence Nightingale and Grace Darling, — went to the front, were present at the awful struggles in the Peninsular campaign, in those of Vicksburg, I^ookout Mountain, Chickamauga and of the Wilder- ness, received the wounded soldiers as thej' were borne from the battlefield, nursed them to convales- ence in the fever stricken camps and, if need were, took tlieir last messages, wiped the death sweat from their broAvs and closed their eyes in the last sleep. Only "He who counteth all our sorrows" can ever measure the good that they did and the sorrow which they relieved. Many perished in the typhus-ridden camps and hospitals and were as truly sacred martyrs of the conflict as the soldiers who fell beneath shot and shell. These, too, should be counted as worthy comrades in that ghostly army of which the Abbe Perreyve wrote: "L'nseen by the corporal eyes, but too clearly visible to the mind's eye, the great army of the dead, the army of the slain, the abandoned, the forgotten, the army of cruel tortures and pix)- lotiged infirmities, which pursues its fatal march behind what we call glory." To tell the beadroll of such heroism would 1m' impossible, for in this, as in every similar crisis, thousands suffered and died whose very names are forgf)tten. A grateful country recalls the name of Dorothea L. Dix, Clara Harlowe Barton, Helen Louise Gilson, Eliza C. Porter, Mary A. Bickerdyke, ^largaret Eliza- beth Breckinridge, Amy M. BradU\v, Arabella (Jrif- fith Barlow, Nellie Maria Taylor, Adeline Couzins, the Woolseys, Schuylers, Primes and many others. ^'Last at the Cross and earliest at the grave," could be written of these women as truly as of those holy women, who remained loyal in the Supreme Tragedv 11 Said one of those brave ^vomen, on board a sieamei- lU'ar \'ic-ksbni'arton, who three days after Fort Sumter had fallen, went to Washington to receive the first wounded as they came from Baltimore in April, 1861, and who from that time to the close of the w^ar and afterwards to her latest breath gave her life to the re- lief of human suffering, whether such suffering came from war or from disaster through hurricane, epi- demic or otherwise? More than once women, like Mrs. I\icketts and Mrs. Barlow, — each the Avife of a Major- General — passed between the lines of embattled armies in the very midst of the conflict, that they might nurse a husband, relative, or friend in the enemy's lines. No service seemed too menial or dangerous for these brave women and of one of them a private in the Sixteenth New^ York Regiment wrote in simple but impressive lines on the Chickahominy in 1862: ''To one borne from the sullen battle's roar, Dearer the greeting of th}^ gentle eyes, W^hen he a-w^ary, torn and bleeding lies. Than all the glory that the victors prize. When peace shall come and homes shall smile again, A thousand soldier hearts, in Northern climes, Shall tell their little children in their rhymes Of the sweet saints who blessed tlie old war times." To record all the acts of heroism and self-sacri- fice, the tender sayings and the sweet benedictions of these women would require a volume, and if all 12 could be thus recorded for the grateful adiiiiialiou of posterity, the Recording Angel would have no occasion to blot it out forever with a geiilh' teai-, but rather seal it for perpetual reiueuibrauce with a divine benediction. Let one instance speak for all, and I select it simply because the present project owes nuuh of its inspiration to the sacred memory of this woman. On the outbreak of the war, Arabella (Irittlth. a young and lovely woman of no inconsiderable in- tellectual attainments and of assured social standing, was engaged to a young lawyer, who has since passed into history as Major-General Francis C. Barlow. On the 19th of April, 18G1, Barlow enlisted as a private in the Twelfth Regiment of the New York Militia and on the day before his regiment left for AVashington the young couple Avere married. The next day they parted. Mrs. Barlow left the comfort and retirement of her home, joined the Sanitary Com- mission and reached Harrison's Landing on the 2nd of July, 1862. Death had reaped a great harvest and thousands of wounded and dying men were arriving. To the relief of this multiplied suffering Mrs. Barlow gave every energy of mind and body. While nursing in the field hospital at Antietam, her husband, severely wounded, was brought in on a stretcher. How grateful it must have been to him, when he first opened his eyes in the rude surroun